Contradictions in Mending Wall

Contradictions in Mending Wall "The strength of 'Mending Wall', one of Frost's most often quoted poems, rests upon a contradiction. Its two famous lines oppose each other. The poem maintains that: " 'Something there is that doesn't love a wall.'

"But it also insists:
" 'Good fences make good neighbours.' "The contradiction is logical, for the opposing statements are uttered by two different types of people and both are right. Man cannot live without walls, boundaries, limits and particularly self-limitations; yet he resents all bonds and is happy at the downfall of any barrier. In 'Mending Wall' the boundary line is useless: " 'There where it is we do not need the wall.'

"And, to emphasize the point, the speaker adds playfully:
" 'He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.' "Some readers have found far-reaching implications in this poem. They have found that it states one of the greatest problems of our time: whether national walls should be made stronger for our protection, or whether they should be let down, since they cramp our progress toward understanding and eventual brotherhood. Other readers have read 'Mending Wall' as a symbolic poem. In the voices of the two men the younger, whimsical, 'new-fashioned' speaker and the old-fashioned farmer who replies with his one determined sentence, his inherited maxim - some readers hear the clash of two forces: the spirit of revolt, which challenges tradition, and the spirit of restraint, which insists that conventions must be upheld, built up and continually rebuilt, as a matter of principle. "The poet himself frowns upon such symbolic interpretations. He denies that the poem says anything more than it seems to say. The contradiction is the heart of the poem. It answers itself in the paradox of people, in neighbors and competitors, in the contradictory nature of man."

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..."MendingWall" by Robert Frost is a poem in which the characteristics of vocabulary, rhythm and other aspects of poetic technique combine in a fashion that articulates, in detail, the experience and the opposing convictions that the poem describes and discusses. The ordinariness of the rural activity is presented in specific description, and as so often is found in Frost's poems, the unprepossessing undertaking has much larger implications. Yet his consideration of these does not disturb the qualities of accessible language and technique, which give the poem its unique flavor and persuasiveness. The poem works on two levels of realism and metaphor, with a balance as poised as the act of mending the all itself.
(themes) Perhaps one of the reasons that Frost remains one the best known and best loved American poets is that his themes are universal and attractive. They offer the reader affirmative resolutions for the conflicts dramatized in his life and his poetry. Readers, whether young or old, waging their own struggles against the constant threat of chaos in their life, find comfort and encouragement in many of Frost's lines which are so cherished that they have become familiar quotations: "Good fences make good neighbors", "Miles to go before I sleep."
(theme) "MendingWall" is about boundaries. Frost, in a personal evaluation of this poem stated, "Nationality is something I couldn't live...

...Mendingwall
A stone wall separates the speaker’s property from his neighbor’s. In spring,
the two meet to walk the wall and jointly make repairs. The speaker sees no
reason for the wall to be kept—there are no cows to be contained, just apple
and pine trees. He does not believe in walls for the sake of walls. The
neighbor resorts to an old adage: “Good fences make good neighbors.” The
speaker remains unconvinced and mischievously presses the neighbor to look
beyond the old-fashioned folly of such reasoning. His neighbor will not be
swayed. The speaker envisions his neighbor as a holdover from a justifiably
outmoded era, a living example of a dark-age mentality. But the neighbor
simply repeats the adage.
Form
Blank verse is the baseline meter of this poem, but few of the lines march
along in blank verse’s characteristic lock-step iambs, five abreast. Frost
maintains five stressed syllables per line, but he varies the feet extensively
to sustain the natural speech-like quality of the verse. There are no stanza
breaks, obvious end-rhymes, or rhyming patterns, but many of the end-words
share an assonance (e.g., wall, hill, balls, wall, and well sun, thing, stone,
mean, line, and again or game, them, and him twice). Internal rhymes, too,
are subtle, slanted, and conceivably coincidental. The vocabulary is all of...

...INTRODUCTION
"MendingWall" is a metaphorical poem written in blank verse, published in 1914, by Robert Frost (1874–1963). The poem appeared as the first selection in Frost's second collection of poetry, North of Boston. It is set in the countryside and is about one man questioning why he and his neighbor must rebuild the stone wall dividing their farms each spring.
SUMMARY
The poem literally says that a stone wall separates the speaker's property from his neighbor's. Every year the wall is damaged from harsh weather and hunters. In the spring, the two neighbors walk the wall and jointly make repairs. Also, the speaker sees no reason for keeping the wall because there are no cows to be contained or anything, only apple and pine trees.
The theme is that you won't get to know a person unless you put down your wall or barrier.
The speaker can be characterized as philosophical, amiable, and unconvinced. The philosophical aspect comes from figurative language and diction such as when the speaker says that "spring is the mischief in [him]" (line 28). The speaker is also amiable for he friendly converses with his neighbor about the necessity of the wall. The speaker remains unconvinced about why the neighbor wants to keep the wall. Lastly, the speaker's tone is one that is earful and inquiring for change and an end to the...

...Fatima Canteras
Dr. Fernando de Toro
ENGL 1300
5 December 2012
The Wall: A Barrier and an Obstacle
In the poem “MendingWall” written by Robert Frost, the main topic is the wall which is situated between the speaker’s and his neighbour’s respective properties. The wall in this poem can be interpreted as both a barrier and as a bridge between the two men in the poem- the speaker and his neighbour. It separates not only their properties, but it can also be seen as an obstacle in other facets of their lives. In spite of the wall representing that, however, it is also a bridge that connects them together as an annual event – a tradition- in which they are able to meet and socialize with each other.
The wall is both a literal and figurative barrier in the poem. It is literal because it is visibly present, an obstacle which marks the end and start of the speaker and the neighbour’s properties. The reason and purpose of this wall is not known to the speaker and he is adamant in saying to his neighbour that “we [they] do not need the wall.” He also declares in the lines 24 to 26 that his property is an “apple orchard” and his neighbor’s is all “pines” and thus, he does not see the need for the wall when his “apple trees will never…eat the cones under his pines.” Here, the speaker clearly thinks that there is no point in this...

...﻿MENDINGWALL
“MendingWall” is poem penned by Robert Frost which talks about a personal incident experienced by Frost at his farm and is also indirectly linked to the Berlin Wall, thus, it has a strong political context. “MendingWall” is an eclogue, written in pastoral dialogue, “Good fences make good neighbors”. This is done in order to introduce the rural setting of his farm and describe his personal experience on his farm in New Hampshire. With the use of pastoral voice, he also brings in a sense of individualism as both the farmers have different opinions on the building of the wall. The poem, written in blank verse, adds to the sense of rhythm in the poem. However, the irregular structure can also be described to be precarious like the wall, thus, heightening its dramatic impact on the audience. The poem is based on two significant forces – the season of spring, being nature, and the human, which consciously dislodge the stones. There is a paradox of ideas at every stage in the play representing the two different view points of the two farmers, “He is all pine and I am apple orchard.”
The title, “Mendingwall” has numerous relevances that can also be individually highlighted by the readers. A few of which are – the political barrier created in the cold war, the wall in literature in Sophocles play...

...Robert Frost's poem "The MendingWall" may not seem to be a poem with a lot of meaning but if readers take time to listen to what the author has to say they will discover that it is talking about the basic relationships between people. The author is focusing on an inanimate object that separated two individuals even though it is nothing more than a little stone wall in the middle of a field.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast
The above selection of the poem shows how impersonal the wall is. There is no humanity associated with this object, nor is there any emotion attached to it. Even thought the object has no emotion itself, there is emotion directed toward it as we see in line 1 of the poem. There is something out in the world that doesn't like this wall. Not only does this relate the author's feelings about how it keeps objects separated, This feeling of animosity has gone so far that something has gone as far as to destroy sections of the wall.
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs, The gaps I mean,
The author goes even further in his description of the emotions directed at the...

...In the poem 'MendingWall' by Robert Frost, the poet considers the value or otherwise, of boundaries. In contemplating whether good fences make good neighbors, he is including all barriers and boundaries in that - including walls. He is concerned that the saying may be becoming so popular - and spouted so often - that it is fast becoming trite. He wonders whether properties are always of sufficient threat to each other as to always demand some kind of barrier. Apples are no threat to cattle for example, or corn to forestry trees. However, others may feel different - it depends on what's on the property and what the neighbor believes. Some believe that it's pointless to wonder what your neighbor's like - just throw up a wall and be done with it - that way everyone's happy. There are no incursions and therefore no disputes.
"I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought / And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:"
I regret that I did not achieve many things I tried to get, and with old regrets renewed I now grieve over having wasted my precious time:
"Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow / For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,"
Then I can cry, being unaccustomed to crying, over dear friends who have died,
"And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe / And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:"
And weep again over former loves that I put behind me long ago, and cry over the pain of many...

...﻿Lisa Miner
Professor Skowronek
EN 103
20 July 2011
An Analysis of Robert Frost's MendingWall
In his poem, “MendingWall”, Robert Frost presents two gentlemen and their annual effort to repair a wall that separates their property. Frost uses the wall as a metaphor to portray the idea of barriers between people, and the repairing of the wall to demonstrate repairing a friendship and coming together. Frost uses metaphoric symbolism in the poem, using the process of repairing an actual wall, as a representation of the barriers that separate two neighbors. Behind the literal representation of repairing this wall, there is a much deeper meaning, which reflects coming together, overcoming obstacles, and resolving social barriers. While the belief is that barriers offer a source of protection and privacy, in this case, they are used to bring friends together. Clearly, the process of mending the wall is a metaphor that Frost uses to exemplify an idea about borders as a representation of barriers but also as a vehicle for demonstrating the mending of a relationship.
As for his interpretation of “MendingWall”, Craig Dworkin dissects the poem with an idea that the entire poem is based on figurative words, meanings, and implications. He states, “When Frost wrote...